Lawyers disagree on Lebanon School District truancy case

The attorney for the Lebanon School District has a different interpretation of a federal judge's ruling on a class action suit against the district regarding excessive truancy fines.

On Tuesday, Michael Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia trumpeted the decision of Chief Judge Yvette Kane of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania as a win for the parents of students who paid truancy fines in excess of $300 between 2004-2009. He stated that Kane's ruling meant the district will be required to repay $108,000 in fines.

But the school district's attorney, Rebecca Young, said Wednesday Churchill is getting ahead of himself because the method and amount of restitution must still be determined by the court.

"All we have is a declaratory order," Young said. "What we don't have is an order for restitution. The judge's decision says that the district was unjustly enriched but it did not direct the district to take any action."

Kane's ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed in January 2011 by the Public Interest Law Center on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and four district parents who claimed the truancy fines assessed to them were in excess of the $300 maximum allowed by law. In one case, a family paid $9,000 in fines, according to the suit.

The lawsuit, which eventually expanded into a class-action case, asked the court to force the district to stop collecting the fines and demanded repayment of hundreds of truancy fines that were excessive and levied illegally.

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The district has always taken the position that it had no control over the fines because they were set by a magisterial district judge.

"There has always been a burden on the plaintiff to establish that the district imposed the fines," Young said. "Our position has been from day one that we don't impose or induce the fines - that is not our role."

In response to the lawsuit, the Magisterial District Judge Maria Dissinger - a former Lebanon school director - dropped unpaid fines in excess of $300 to that level.

But the plaintiffs argued that about 200 people who already paid the fines were not reimbursed and charged that the school district collaborated with the district judge on making that decision, depriving the fine-payers of the constitutional right of due process.

While Kane did not take a definitive position on the collaboration charge, she did rule on behalf of the parents and the NAACP in stating that district was "unjustly enriched" by receiving higher than allowable fines.

Churchill agrees that no method of restitution was laid out in Kane's decision. But the more important point of the district's responsibility to repay the money is clear, he said.

"The point on distribution is correct, but that doesn't lessen the fact that the judge has found that the class members - the people who paid over $300 in fines - are entitled to restitution," Churchill said. "The next step will be to establish a procedure for distribution of funds to the class members and that order remains to be worked out between the parties if they can or by the court if they can't."

That effort will begin on Monday when both sides have a conference call with the judge.

Young and Churchill are also in disagreement when it comes to a trial date set for Dec. 3.

Young said she believes that the trial will go forward, noting that the constitutional claim that the fine-payers did not receive due process was not established in Judge Kane's decision and must still be addressed.

Churchill stated that the material issues of the case have been satisfied by the judge's decision, and he does believe a trial will be necessary.

"We don't believe any trial on that (due process) claim will be necessary because we got full relief on the courts decision in just enrichment," he said.